


have my sympathy

by pissedofsandwich



Series: second leading man / supporting role [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Edit 7/1/2020: Now with ART!, Flirting, Getting Together, Insecurity, M/M, Pining, also atsumu: pines for hinata, atsumu pretends to not care but he does, atsumu: pining is so cliche, he cares very much, self-indulgent karaoke scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pissedofsandwich/pseuds/pissedofsandwich
Summary: Osamu told him once that he had the second leading man curse."You know," he said, shaping steaming hot rice into a neat triangle. At this point in his career, Osamu told him he was immune to the pain. "You got the viewers rooting for you, but in the end, the main girl wasn't for you."
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu, osasuna and arankita mentioned
Series: second leading man / supporting role [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1854484
Comments: 132
Kudos: 1031





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [it’s like you told me, go forward slowly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168916) by [elenoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenoir/pseuds/elenoir). 



> this fic is largely influenced by a conversation i had in the comment thread of [elenoir's](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168916/chapters/58206361) fanfic, in which they called atsumu the second leading man and left me in a trance for two whole months. also red white & royal blue by CMQ. they are a Huge Influence.
> 
> also this [entire concept](https://twitter.com/tinysriasih/status/1275727233412407297)

Osamu would be the first one to tell anyone with half a brain that Atsumu had the equivalent personality of sewage water, but don't listen to him because he, too, was full of shit. He was just better at acting like he wasn't, being a trusty business owner with Tokyo investors blowing up his phone every other day and all. Atsumu was a big, fat jerk, but he at least kept his nose out of people's business because he actually _wasn't_ that big of a jerk, and also, if it wasn't volleyball, or affecting the way he played volleyball, it wasn't important.

But Bokuto was clearly pining, and Atsumu really couldn't leave it at that. 

He'd become somewhat a nicer person compared to his youth—he really _hoped_ , okay, he promised he would do it for Kita when his beautiful, serene captain graduated and conveniently buried his second button in a loose panel of the gym, which _didn't_ break his heart, of course—and therefore wasn't the kind of person who would call his teammates pathetic anymore.

Sitting in the izakaya after the game against the Adlers for an impromptu reunion dinner, squished between a horrified-looking Sakusa (yes, he was wearing a mask, but he always looked both horrified or uninterested, so it was a gander between the two, really) and a very feral Hoshiumi (those two words were apparently synonymous, he'd learn later) arguing about dogsitting, of all things, to the Adlers' captain, watching Bokuto moon over his bespectacled former setter, Atsumu was beginning to regress into the mean person that he was in high school.

He brought his sake to his lips, tried to find a replacement for the word pathetic that would still aptly describe the situation, but less mean-spirited, and found: pitiful, miserable, lamentable—

Bokuto, drunk on sake and victory (mostly victory, because holy _hell_ that last spike of Bokuto’s was astronomical, Hinata was truly the greatest decoy), showed Akaashi something on his phone that had Akaashi laughing. His laugh was demure, almost bashful. He was kinda cute, in the way that boys with glasses and floppy hair were kinda cute until they got boring, but Atsumu supposed he couldn't be a judge of Bokuto's own tastes. After all, his dating pool consisted solely of people who actively ignored him. 

Bokuto, beaming at the way his former setter laughed, went on to say something else, and in succession, three things happened:

  1. They both glanced at each other.
  2. They realized how close their noses are to each other.
  3. They looked away, twin blushes on their cheeks, cleared their throat and pretended like nothing happened.



It was disgusting.

Unwittingly, his brain supplied: fucking pathetic.

*

Atsumu didn't understand pining.

He had always been a go-getter—if he wanted something, he went for it. If he received rejection in return, he dealt with it. He wanted to be the best setter he knew, so he cultivated the hunger inside him, pushed himself to the limits of his abilities, training harder and harder, first to surpass Osamu, then everyone else he knew. It didn't matter if his middle school team hated him for it. He did what was best to get where he wanted, and if it pissed people off, he didn't lose sleep over it. Anyone who couldn't keep up with him was never going to stand on his side of the court, anyway.

His approach worked in most things. In love, he operated more or less with a similar modus operandi. It may have led him to do foolish things, like drastically changing his appearance to get someone's attention (only to be confronted with the fact that while the subject of his devotion _did_ like men, he simply did _not_ like Atsumu), which was a fact that Osamu still had a field day about—but really, the blonde hair had kind of become part of his iconic brand now, so who really was laughing now, huh, Osamu?

(Yes, the guy was Kita. Yes, it did take him an embarrassingly long time to move on, but that was between him and God. Also, Ojiro Aran won in every single aspect of his life, and Atsumu really, really took him for granted.)

Point was, when Atsumu became aware of his attraction to certain people, he acted on it. He made his intentions known. He spent no time hopelessly wondering if the other person would return his feelings. The time wasted languishing on the possibility of unrequited love would be better off utilized to do something more conclusive, like going out and actually flirting with the person in question. It applied for the other way around: when admirers offered him a proposition, he only spared about five to seven seconds to consider their features, compatibility, and career implications to determine whether he'd like to fuck them. Straight-forward, calculated, and easy. Just like his tosses.

So people pining in front of his alcohol was not a sight that put him in a good mood.

All things considered, it made sense that Bokuto would be the type of person to pine. He was another volleyball idiot, in that the only thing he was smart about was volleyball and not much else. Atsumu would even bet that Bokuto wasn't yet aware of his own feelings, with the way he kept stealing glances and looking away like he wasn't quite sure what made him want to be so close to Akaashi. It was worse than seeing a kicked puppy. 

When rom-coms pulled that will-they-won't-they shtick, it infuriated Atsumu to no end. He hated waste, and drama created by the two parties refusing to communicate their feelings was wasteful, all the stupid longing littering the space. To preserve his sanity, he pushed Suna and Osamu together in the beginning of the third year because he got sick of Osamu moping around the house, incapable of shutting up about Suna's 'piercing dark gaze,' whatever the heck that meant. He locked them together in a closet and hid the key in a first year's gym bag. Osamu punched the lights out of him when the janitor let them both out, but he also gained a boyfriend at the end of it, so really, who was winning _again_ , Osamu?

Perhaps he should do the old trick. He eyed the bathroom at the far end of the izakaya, blinking with neon lights. No one would notice notice if he dragged Akaashi into the bathroom—though he was close to Atsumu’s height, he was nowhere as heavy, and there were too many people in the izakaya that the absence one single person would hardly be notable, then he could fake an emergency and make Bokuto go with him…

"You look like you're scheming."

Atsumu hummed. On the opposite of him, Hinata had apparently managed to extricate himself from the overly proud and enthusiastic circle of Karasuno graduates. If it wasn't for the promise of free-flow beer, he wouldn't have come. He hated reunions, especially when mixed up with a bunch of people he maybe only met once or twice in passing. 

Hinata's cheeks were flushed—of course he was the type to get glowy when drinking—but his eyes weren't glassy at all, as sharp and alert as he was on court. 

"You always think the worst of me, Shou-kun," Atsumu grinned. He kept his glass near his mouth. A date from two weeks ago said it made him look wolfish, alluring. 

Hinata was, of course, immune to it.

"Give me a reason not to," Hinata dug back. He slid his fingers easily over the neck of the bottle between them, pouring a healthy amount into an emptied cup, which he held with his other hand. He had a tan line around that wrist in the shape of a wristwatch, and Atsumu made no effort to be subtle about staring at that strip of skin, lighter than the rest of his arm, the color that he would most probably find on Hinata's chest, the parts of him best kept from the unyielding sun. 

"Ain't I an angel?" Atsumu shot back, watching the way his throat work as Hinata drank, easy like it was water. "Haven't I always tried to get y'all out of trouble? Like earlier." He nodded at the next table, where Bokuto was now dueling Kageyama in an arm wrestling match, the silver-haired guy from Karasuno playing referee. "When Tobio-kun picked a fight with ya."

Hinata hid a smile. Atsumu wanted to see it.

A fact about Hinata: he was another volleyball idiot. He was the kind of person who flew to a whole new continent to relearn the sport he spent his high school days playing from scratch. He endured the sun, the sand, the isolation of looking different and not speaking the same language all in pursuit of a truly optimistic goal: to be able to do everything. But where Bokuto was oblivious, Hinata was straight-up dense. How could he not realize the effect he had on people? In high school, he was a ball of frenetic energy, leaking everywhere, leaving imprints whenever he went. Atsumu hadn't wanted to be affected, but 3 sets and a complete whoop-ass later, he ended up declaring that he would set for Hinata one day. That was the day that he learned that being in love with Hinata was never really a choice. Like falling asleep: unaware, until he was in the thick of a dream. 

He walked into the Jackals' tryout every bit a changed man, rocked the entire stadium, and proceeded to walk out completely oblivious of the way he left everyone in awe. If someone were to devote his entire life to Hinata, he wouldn't know it. 

Hinata was dangerous because instead of being pathetic, Hinata made other people feel pathetic. 

"I guess you're right," Hinata grinned. He leaned in, all conspiratorially. "So, what were you scheming?"

"Shou-kun!"

"Fine, fine. If not a scheme, then what are you thinking about, Atsumu-san?"

"Ah," Atsumu put his elbows on the table. Bokuto had been conquered, though it would seem that his loss had more to do with the fact that he was too drunk to do anything properly. He leaned heavily on Akaashi, whose arm was draped around him, complaining in a high, whiny voice. Atsumu was positive he was only pretending to be upset; worst of all, though, Akaashi looked _pleased_ to be doting on Bokuto like that, carding fingers through grey-black strands. It was so soft that Atsumu felt like he should punch a wall just to recover.

Sickening. This was _beyond_ pathetic.

"Just young love," he said to Hinata, and faked a smile through gritted teeth.

*

Osamu told him once that he had the second leading man curse.

"You know," he said, shaping steaming hot rice into a neat triangle. At this point in his career, Osamu told him he was immune to the pain. "You got the viewers rooting for you, but in the end, the main girl wasn't for you."

Atsumu narrowed his eyes. "The love of my life just sent me a wedding invitation," Atsumu said, "can't a guy get a bit more sympathy?"

"I thought you said you're over him," Osamu said, with the air of someone who knew precisely that not one person in this plane of existence ever got over Kita Shinsuke.

"I am," Atsumu lied anyway. "He can still be the love of my life. If there exists another man more perfect than Kita-san, he should settle for second place."

Osamu rolled his eyes. Now a perfect triangle wrapped in nori, he served it on a clean plate, fresh and inviting. Only, Atsumu had no appetite. He reached for it anyway, grumbling at his twin's judgment eyebrows. "You're right," Atsumu said. "The second most perfect man in the world is Aran-kun, and he's marrying the most perfect man in the world. Why do I even try, Samu?"

"'Cause you always go for the people who don't like you," Osamu said. "You think sometimes you just like to torture yourself?"

Atsumu thought about this around a mouthful of rice, flaked salmon, and spicy mayonnaise. The flavor profile was better this time, and he wondered what Osamu did differently. The mayonnaise was certainly not as overpowering as it had been in last week’s recipe. "Nah," Atsumu said. "I just like the challenge."

Osamu looked at him skeptically, arms crossed over his chest. "I take it back," he declared. "You don't _have_ the second leading man curse. You put it on yourself."

Atsumu flung the onigiri wrapper at him. "Just because yer relationship with Suna is all lovey-dovey, doesn't mean ya get to shit all over me, alright? Ya have me to thank for that relationship!"

Obviously, Atsumu didn’t take it seriously. Osamu was full of shit and very, very wrong. It wasn't like Atsumu never got the metaphorical girl—he hooked up with so many people since he started with Black Jackals, it was hard to keep up. One time, he attended a party with the rest of the team and proceeded to hit on a girl who turned out to have slept with him not even a week ago. She’d slapped him across the cheek and called him a big, fat jerk for blocking her number, and perhaps he really deserved to that title because his gut reaction was to tell the girl, _do you know what else is big and fat_ —

In short, Atsumu got the girl, alright. He got plenty of them in his DMs. Plenty of boys, too, though he was not nearly as interested. Therefore, Osamu was, as hypothesized, full of shit.

There were times, though, where Atsumu started to doubt. Sat alone and wondered if Osamu was right, after all—which would piss him off even more, because Osamu was always wrong. Osamu _had_ to be wrong. Because if he was right, and Atsumu was never going to get the main girl, it would mean that he would never get Hinata. 

(Not that he was a girl, but. Semantics.)

Under the stadium lights, Hinata reached for Kageyama. Their hands slid over on another, a touch that must've felt disgusting for how sweaty their hands were, and stayed entangled, a world of unknowns passing in the seconds their gazes held. Kageyama was smirking far too much for someone who had been one-upped.

A highlight reel of Hinata, in his head: his unwavering receive the first minute of the first set, his left-handed spike, his decoy skills, his _setting_ abilities. Their freak quick, quicker than Kageyama and Hinata’s had been.

Perhaps being one-upped was an understatement. Their rivalry, after all, span nearly over a decade, starting with a bitter loss in middle school to tumultuous years in high school as rivals within a team, Brazil and the national team to Jackals and Adlers. It made him wonder if, instead of defeating a rival, Hinata had instead fulfilled a promise. 

“Have my sympathy, Tobio-kun,” he had thought to himself all those years ago. “You got yourself wrapped around your super dangerous partner’s finger.”

Kageyama turned to him. They were eye-level to each other, and perhaps it was the inner immature sixteen-year-old on the wheel, but this fact pleased him. He shook Atsumu’s hand. He said, “Good game, Miya-san.” 

Atsumu imagined him saying instead, “I knew him first.”

Atsumu imagined him saying, “Have my sympathy, Miya-san. You got yourself wrapped around your super dangerous partner’s finger.”

*

Atsumu went home last. 

His apartment was new. He'd only recently moved out of the Jackals' dorm, having spent the one mandatory year living next door to Sakusa, who never let him set foot into the common area without taking his shoes off. His room was now Hinata's. 

The thought only crept up at him when he was drunk and alone, but sometimes, very rarely, Atsumu admitted that he kind of missed living in the dorm. 

Inunaki, despite opting out of the post-game reunion dinner ("I don't really know anyone," he'd grinned sheepishly), would still be awake, joystick in hand or eating a celebratory ramen noodle while watching a shitty movie just to make fun of it. Atsumu would join him. Unlike Bokuto, who became sleepy when drunk, Atsumu just became restless. 

Inunaki always kept up a steady chatter of nothing, and Atsumu would reply with his own steady chatter of nothing, and they'd both get too tired to sleep in their beds and woke up with a crick in their necks to a very pissed off Sakusa. "I couldn't sleep at all, you cretins," he'd hiss mostly at Atsumu, because even icy Sakusa couldn't be pissed at guileless, unassuming Inunaki. Atsumu, on the other hand, was an easy target as the resident big, fat jerk. 

He wondered if Hinata was now discovering this, wandering the halls to find Inunaki in the common room, friendly hand waving him over. The force of Inunaki and Hinata together would render anger impossible, and in the morning, when Sakusa stomped into the common area to yell at them, he'd be hit with kindness so loud that he'd simply grumble and miraculously let it slide. 

Atsumu would pay to see that.

He washed his face, drank a cold glass of water, placed Advils on his nightstand. He settled in his new bed—queen-sized, so soft that he sank into it, like he was on a cloud. Much more comfortable than the one he had at the dorm. He closed his eyes, wondered if Hinata was now finding out about the lump on the upper right corner of the bed that simply wouldn't budge no matter how much he tried to pummel it, if he got pissed at decided to just live with it.

Wondered if Hinata got back at all.

After all, it was Kageyama in the taxi with him.

*

The next morning, the spikes on Bokuto's head were droopy. He hit all the balls Atsumu tossed to him just fine, but Atsumu wasn't looking for _just fine._ Their match against EJP Raijin was in two weeks, and _just fine_ wouldn’t cut it against Suna and Washio’s impenetrable iron wall. Atsumu, for one, was not going to put a stop to their winning streak—Osamu would never let him live it down if he lost to his boyfriend—and besides, wasn’t Bokuto the one yapping about how excited he was to be playing against an old teammate all weekend?

He wasn't the only one who noticed. Hinata raised his eyebrows at him, mouthing, "Dejected mode?"

The beautiful specimen of man was the first person in the gym, this morning. Atsumu was the second, wanting to burn off his excess restless energy as soon as possible. Hinata was already practicing spikes against the wall, alternating between his right and left hand.

He was also wearing a muscle tee. 

Fate was really cruel.

"You know, Bokkun," Atsumu said sunnily, the second time Bokuto barely missed a spike. "If you aren't feeling up for it, I could take it easy with you today."

Bokuto went red to the tips of his ears. He knew as well as Atsumu that this wasn't him being lenient. This was Atsumu saying, _I don’t think you’re worth me giving you 100%._ To someone like Bokuto, who was either on or off, nothing humiliated him more than that. Hinata looked nervous, like he wasn't so sure that this was the right move, but Atsumu had wanted to strike a chord. He'd lay it down clear as crystal the first time Bokuto met him: "If you can't get in a good spike, don't go whining about my toss."

Anyone who couldn't hit his toss was a loser, and Atsumu didn't make it a habit to play with losers.

He was aware that Bokuto's mood swings ran deeper than just a high school kid being bratty and immature. He'd seen the medication Bokuto took regularly before every match, a little green pill that he swallowed dry. In high school, Atsumu and Bokuto knew each other in the vague way that high school volleyball players who ran in similar circles knew each other. His most notable traits: top five national ace, insane straight spikes, obnoxiously loud. Extreme mood swings. Fukurodani and Inarizaki hadn't had a match during two years he and Bokuto were both in high school, but if they had, Atsumu didn't think he would've loved to take Bokuto apart. 

Bokuto broke too easily. It would've been like taking candy from a hapless child. When the foxes wanted to eat, they picked prey who fought back. More than anyone, Atsumu loved playing with his food.

That was then. Now, Bokuto simply closed his eyes and breathed—Atsumu counted five seconds in, five seconds out. He looked up, and it was like he was a whole another person entirely. "Sorry, Atsumu. Let's try that again."

Atsumu. Not Tsum-Tsum.

"Alright," Atsumu said, and tossed.

When the ball hit the floor, the sound reverberated through the walls, like thunder splitting the sky in two.

*

Contrary to popular belief, Atsumu was not a problem child. He may not have been the book-smart second-grader that Osamu was, given that his grades were nothing to write home about, but Atsumu was not a menace. His PE teacher even wrote that he was a "pleasure to have in class."

(Osamu received that same note, but he didn't find this out until later, while he was tidying up his stuff in preparation to move out to Osaka for his first term with the Black Jackals. His mother, a cold, yet surprisingly considerate woman, had apparently hidden it from Atsumu, and swore Osamu to secrecy. Atsumu didn't know whether to be pissed or touched.)

In fact, the only time he—and Osamu—ever got a call from the principal's office, it wasn't his fault. Surprisingly, it was his father's—for making a bento box so good that it put other bento boxes to shame. It incited envy among other students, causing conflict between the parents when they became insecure of their inability to replicate the quality of his father's bento—the careful rabbit apples, octopuses made out of sausage, bears made out of rice with cut-out seaweed faces, wearing hats made of tofu skin—resulting in friction in the family and class. 

His father, who had graduated with a minor in culinary, when asked to dumb down his cooking—which he considered as art—kindly stepped down from the role of bento-prepper, and delegated his mother to the task. He reasoned that art was not meant to be suppressed, and as long as he lived, he would not be caught dead dumbing down his creation just to appease some jealous parents. He'd rather not step foot in the kitchen ever again.

His mother had called him a dramatic dumbass, and continued to cook their lunch until they got too old for bento boxes.

It wasn't an issue. His mother was passable at cooking, though for years, her level had stuck at "able to put together ingredients" rather than the artistic approach his father had taken. His friends thought it was unusual that his father spent more time in the kitchen than his mother, but his father had always joked that he didn't marry his mother for her cooking skills, anyway. He always said that he married her because she was the most exquisite thing in all of Hyogo, which always made his mother roll her eyes and say something about beauty being ephemeral, and in return, his father would counter that he was convinced that his mother would only look more beautiful with time. 

His mother did not like compliments. Whenever his father would say something romantic, she would slap him lightly on the wrist and walk away, disagreeing. His mother, to ten-years-old Atsumu, was an enigma, so unlike the Shoujo manga protagonists that he knew; snappish and distant, even to his father. Yet his father continued to shower her with sweet nothings, unblinking in the face of his mother's resistance.

"It's like throwing mud on a wall," his father had said, when Atsumu asked him why he didn't give up. "You're never going to break down a wall like that. But you do it often enough, you leave a mark. And that's harder to ignore."

Atsumu had grown up putting his father on a pedestal. He thought that metaphor was the coolest thing he'd ever heard, not that he had half the mind to comprehend what it really meant, back then. He was convinced that his parents were the height of romance: his mother's steel wall, and his father's unrelenting faith for her. 

When they divorced, ten weeks after he entered fifth grade, it tore him apart.

*

Sometimes, his mother would shake her head at him, partly fond, but mostly exasperated. "Your idiosyncrasies," she said, gesturing to the air Atsumu occupied, "remind me a lot of your father."

Atsumu hated it.

*

Osamu picked up cooking. When he chose it over volleyball, he felt it beyond betrayal. 

Abandonment, perhaps. But that was ridiculous. Despite no longer having anything in common to subject Atsumu to his existence, Osamu wouldn't leave him alone. He bombarded Atsumu with texts, even though in half of them, Osamu was mostly laughing at him. Sometimes, he even had his Osaka employees deliver fresh onigiri to his doorstep, bugging him with reminders to eat dinner. He wouldn't listen when Atsumu told him that he was on a diet.

The fact of the matter was Osamu refused to leave him alone, no matter how much Atsumu wanted him to.

Weird, considering he didn’t stay for the thing that mattered the most.

*

Despite Bokuto's efforts to remain 120% on court, as soon as the whistle blew, he slumped against his lockers. Atsumu had no intention to care—again, not volleyball, and Bokuto had proven to be as effective a player even with this strange mood settling over him—except Bokuto was frowning, looking down at his phone in an expression that could be explained as _pensive,_ if Atsumu considered him to be a person who thinks before he acts. Which he wasn't. 

That was concerning enough, but, hey—he figured, even with meds, he could still have bad days. 

Besides, Hinata was already on it, chirping away at Bokuto's sullen exterior, and out of everyone still in the locker room—indifferent Sakusa, too earnest Inunaki, and stiff-but-well-meaning Meian—he was the best for the job. They operated on more or less the same wavelength. So: not Atsumu's problem.

It would probably be over by tomorrow, anyway.

Four days later, after thoroughly wrecking Atsumu's arms in receiving drills, Bokuto declined an invite to karaoke and instead, spent the whole night live-tweeting his reaction to the new chapter of Zombie Knight Zom'Bish. 

This was problematic for several reasons.

  1. Bokuto absolutely loved karaoke nights.
  2. Bokuto was deathly afraid of zombies.
  3. Atsumu knew for a fact that Akaashi, the bespectacled suspect to Bokuto's hypo-dejected mode, was the chief editor of the manga series. Suna was a fan, and by domino effect, Osamu too became a fan, which meant Atsumu got dragged into it because Osamu was the bane of his existence.
  4. Instead of sequestering his loud pining into the immediate perimeter of the MSBY Black Jackals, Bokuto had now involved the rest of the V.League Twitter.
  5. Which meant:



> **BOKUTO** **@koutarou12**
> 
> AHH the new chapter of #ZombieKnightZombish was so SCARY :c THE STORY IS REALLY AWESOME THOUGH :D
> 
> **73 replies | 342 retweets | 400 likes**
> 
> **perpetually sleep-deprived** ** @udai10ma **
> 
> _in reply to **@koutarou12** _
> 
> Thank you so much, Bokuto-san! I have @akaashikeiji to thank for the story!!!
> 
> **Keiji** **@akaashikeiji**
> 
> _in reply to **@koutarou12 @udai10ma** _
> 
> It's nothing.
> 
> **BOKUTO** **@koutarou12**
> 
> _in reply to **@akaashikeiji**_
> 
> IT'S NOT NOTHING, AKAASHIII IT WAS REALLY AWESOME!!! :D :D you really are great!!!

Atsumu squinted at his phone in disgust. He didn't know how, but Bokuto managed to be loud even in text. It gave him a headache. 

"Atsumu-san?" Hinata asked him. "What's wrong?"

He was wearing a loose black t-shirt and track pants. Because they went to the karaoke bar right after practice, the ends of his hair were still damp, and under the pink, purple, and blue beam of lights, Hinata looked like he belonged in a music video. It was fitting that Barnes was making Whitney Houston roll in her grave by butchering _I Will Always Love You_.

Karaoke night. Hinata was up next. Great. Bokuto now had made his pining Atsumu's problem by making him look away from Hinata. 

He looked good enough to eat, and here Atsumu was, worrying about his teammate's piss-poor Twitter flirting skills.

"Shouyou-kun," he said, slipping his phone back to his pocket. No Bokuto or pining for the rest of the night. "What's up?"

Hinata eyed him curiously, but he shook it off quickly. "I was going to ask—"

"Yes," Atsumu said immediately. That startled a laugh out of Hinata, caught off-guard but genuine, and Atsumu grinned.

"I haven't even told you what it is," Hinata said.

"Doesn't matter," Atsumu waved his hand. "I'm in."

Hinata stared at him, the pink-purple-blue beams bouncing off the curves of his face, like he couldn't quite make out what Atsumu was. It pleased him. "Okay, well," Hinata tilted his head, "I hope you like Queen, because you're singing _Don't Stop Me_ with me next."

Now it was Atsumu's turn to laugh. "Shouyou, you don't know me well enough."

"You're a big fan of Queen? I wouldn't have known," Hinata teased. "All you listen to on Spotify is Mitski."

Atsumu flailed, moving to cover Hinata's mouth with one hand. "Shouyou!" he said, mock-scandalized, mostly just to say his name again. Shouyou, _Shouyou_. Hinata was giggling under his palm, and his breath was warm, like the first summer morning after a week of thunderstorms. "Why must you embarrass me like that? Of course everyone's a fan of Queen! And—I also listen to other artists too, you know, like—"

"Rina Sawayama?" Hinata raised one smug eyebrow. 

" _Listen,"_ Atsumu leveled, but Hinata only laughed, an open, honest sound that melted away all the embarrassment he felt. To his horror, he found that he enjoyed this easy exchange, Hinata making fun of him with that wicked twinkle in the corner of his eyes.

"What I meant was," Atsumu slid off the bar stool. "You don't know me well enough if you don't think I'd reject an offer to be the center of attention."

He shed off his MSBY bomber jacket for two reasons: one, because it looked like it would be hot up there with all the lights pointing at him, and two, he was wearing one of those tank tops with the huge arm holes that he knew made his side profile look downright sinful. Hinata wasn't a person who was vexed by most things, so victory tasted especially sweet on his tongue when he caught Hinata staring for a split second, before gamely clearing his throat and looking away like he wanted to return some semblance of respectfulness. 

Atsumu didn't usually appreciate chasteness from a potential hook-up, but apparently, even if Hinata wasn't his type, he was still his type. It was maddening. He excused himself while he ordered another drink. 

Hinata glanced at him curiously, looking like he was in on a joke, and Atsumu was the punchline. 

Finally, Barnes ended his atrocious tribute to Whitney Houston, handing off the microphone to Hinata, who hopped onto the stage with a whoop. He shuffled through songs until he got to _Don't Stop Me Now,_ and called for Atsumu with the microphone.

It was at this point that the whole bar became aware of the fact that there were celebrity athletes present in the same room as them and began whipping out their phones, whispering eagerly among themselves. To paraphrase: Atsumu's comfort zone.

The bartender slid over his frosted glass of Old Fashioned. Atsumu grabbed it with ease, swaggering up to the stage with a cocksure grin. 

Hinata handed him a spare microphone.

The first few notes rang out, and Atsumu sang without looking at the lyric book in front of him, because Freddie Mercury? He was channeling all of his spirit right now.

"Tonight…" he crooned, his voice low and blending into Hinata's. "I'm gonna have myself…" he looked out into the crowd, at the dozens of phones recording and probably livestreaming every single second, and glanced back to Hinata, making sure he knew he aimed it to him when he sang, "a real good time…"

Hinata answered readily with, "I feel alive…"

His English pronunciation was much better than Atsumu's, no doubt a by-product of his time switching between Portuguese and English back in Brazil, his r's rolled a little differently, his l's fluid, easy. He was by no means a good singer—in fact, he missed a lot of notes, singing lower than Freddie's insane range most of the time—but his enthusiasm more or less made up for it. Up until the end of the intro— _cause I'm having a good time, having a good time—_ the crowd was mostly tame, at most nodding along, some maybe humming low under their breath, but by the time Hinata leaped into the next bar, he exploded—shouting out the words with glee, animating the lyrics with heartfelt gestures and expressions, deeply enjoying it all.

"Like a tiger!" he yelled out, putting up claws in front of him, then at the next lyrics, "defying the laws of gravity!" he jumped, not so high that he hit the disco ball hanging near the projector, but damn near so that it startled a laugh out of Atsumu and a couple of shocked gasps from the crowd. Even outside of the court, Ninja Shouyou continued to amaze, and this fact warmed Atsumu all over.

(He was the first person Atsumu could honestly say he felt proud of, and that was foreign. Atsumu wasn't so full of himself that he didn't want to admit his hopeless attraction to one Hinata Shouyou, but this—this fluttery feeling in his chest, that went beyond physical. Which would mean he actually had real, disgusting feelings about Hinata, which—

He downed his drink in one go. It burned, but oddly enough, it felt sobering.)

Under the influence of Hinata Shouyou, the crowd started clapping to the beat, buoyed by this unstoppable force of bone-deep positive energy. By the time they both yelled out, in somewhat perfect harmony, " _I wanna make a supersonic man out of you_!" there was absolutely no one left still in the crowd, all pointing at Hinata, singing back with just the same fervor.

At the booth where the rest of the Black Jackals sat, even Meian had loosened up, tapping his feet rhythmically on the floor while Inunaki jammed on the air guitar. Adriah was delightfully laughing and recording it all, perhaps for blackmail material, but Atsumu found that he cared about nothing else except for this moment right now: the sight of an exuberant Hinata Shouyou, skidding on the stage as he belted out, criminally, "I'm a sex machine ready to reload, like an atom bomb!" He rolled on his heels, standing back up again in a flash, "About to _oh, oh, oh, oh_ , explode!"

Hinata demanded, “Don’t stop me, don’t stop me!” and when the crowd roared back, “Hey, hey, hey!” it felt like he’d _pulled_ that response from them, like anyone in the presence of him had no option but to match his energy iota to iota. 

It made perfect sense, suddenly, why Hinata was so captivating. Why, even if one only had him for mere seconds, his impact was so devastating, made simple men like Atsumu zero in on him and with all the conviction in him say, “I’m going to set for you one day.” Why, even at the face of his excellence, those defeated could only smile at him in return, as if thankful that Hinata would grace the court with his presence at all. 

You couldn’t help but love Hinata Shouyou. 

And Atsumu fell hilariously hard, the kind of head-over-the-heels that would make Osamu laugh for days. This was no mud on the wall; Hinata had been steadily chipping away at his walls, so slow and sinuous that by the time Atsumu realized his heart was no longer caged, Hinata had put a new cell around his bloody, beating heart, locked him up, and threw away the key. 

The worst part was probably the fact that Atsumu didn’t mind it. 

This was how he realized, with a sinking feeling, that he was just as bad as Bokuto:

At the guitar solo, Hinata closed his eyes and ground his hips, lost to the melody. He had sweat on his nape from jumping around so much during the last two minutes and thirty seconds, on his protruding collarbones, and his shirt clung to his chest in a way that could only be described as _deliciously_ , and instead of getting all worked up about how fucking hot Hinata looked, Atsumu was hit with a wave of fondness so intense that he felt like he was going to keel over in pain. 

To save face, Atsumu did the one thing he knew he was good at. 

He made a fool of himself. 

He placed his empty glass on the lyric book stand, and took off his shirt confidently. Even through the hoots and catcalls, he could still make out the sound of Barnes’ booming, maniacal laughter. Adriah, having passed the task of recording to Inunaki, who was definitely bouncing around too much for the video to come out halfway coherent, was climbing on top of the table now, throwing colorful confetti at them. 

Atsumu didn’t even want to know _how_ he even procured them. 

Someone in the front row—could be the waitstaff, could be one of the female patrons, swooning at the sight of two athletes gyrating at the prime of their physique, could be anyone, really; Atsumu was having trouble keeping track of faces that didn’t belong to Hinata—handed him a rose, and he knelt on the flashing stage, presenting the flower immediately to Hinata. It was probably a rude gesture, but Atsumu did have a reputation for being a big, fat jerk, and when Hinata accepted it, took it between his teeth—who could complain, really? A sight straight out of telenovelas, the subject of his fantasies gleaming in front of him under technicolor lights, winking playfully, he thought of the words he read on a holy book: which is it, of the favours of your Lord, that ye deny?

The song slowly faded on a melancholic _la di da_ , but with Hinata’s eyes on his, it felt like something had barely just begun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now featuring [art](https://twitter.com/nyanayuki/status/1278235880659042307?s=20) by the amazing nyana!! pls give them some love <3 (spoiler for the end of the fic, though)
> 
> kind of mature content starting at 'here was the plan' and ending at '...blow his mind', marked with asterisks. i didn't think it was anything explicit, but lemme know if i should change the rating!
> 
> other than that, please enjoy <3

The new Miya household had a tradition called one good thing, one bad thing. Every evening, at the kotatsu, they would go around and name one good and bad thing that happened earlier that day. It was a system their mother invented to keep in touch with their lives when work and family became a little too difficult to juggle. For the first few months, the conversations on the kotatsu were strained, Atsumu too aware of the empty space where his father used to sit, telling jokes and embarrassing his mother, and for too long, his bad thing always consisted of variations of the way he could say,  _ I miss my dad.  _

The first time he saw his mother smile after the divorce, it was tat he dinner after his first official match as a middle schooler. His bad thing had been _we won our first match, but I was subbed out after the first set_ —his mother was stunned, her chopsticks still in the air and halfway to her mouth, and Atsumu remembered having a fleeting thought that she was going to be mad at Atsumu's failure, but instead, she smiled. It was just a tiny quirk of her mouth, quickly hidden away as she hastily reached for her glass, yet Atsumu couldn't stop thinking about it for hours, feeling so giddy that it got Osamu pissed.

That night, he decided he was going to play volleyball forever.

The three of them outgrew a lot of things in that house; after a few years, when their mother received a hard-earned promotion, they moved to a more affluent neighborhood smack right in the center of the business district of Hyogo, left behind his father's mountain of textbooks that he never got around to pick up, and slowly but surely, random things stopped reminding Atsumu of the man who left. 

With the new flexibility that his mother's position provided, their home life improved—she was home at earlier hours, cooked more, smiled more. But through it all—puberty and the test of time—the tradition stayed, even though high school Atsumu was a hormonal monster who would always pick fights with an equally demonic Osamu over dinner, even long after the twins moved out to make a name for themselves.

“So,” Osamu said when Atsumu picked up his phone the morning after karaoke night, way too chirp for a hung-over Atsumu, grappling in the darkness of his room for the glass of water he’d left on his nightstand. “One good thing, one bad thing.”

“Can’t we do this another time?” Atsumu grumbled. 

“Me first then,” Osamu breezed right past him. The way Atsumu could  _ feel  _ him smiling on the other end was disgusting. “One good thing: my brother is finally not a coward. One bad thing: I saw more than I ever needed to in my whole life of my brother’s half-naked ass, so now I have to invest in chemical-grade bleach to rid my eyes of the sight.”

“Huh?” Atsumu rubbed at his eyes.

“Your horny karaoke video,” Osamu explained, and Atsumu thought,  _ oh.  _ “Another bad thing: mom is yelling at me over text about keeping you in check. The exact words she used was:  _ I did not set out to raise a pervert for a child. _ You should probably call her soon.”

With great strength, Atsumu lifted himself off the bed and drank the entirety of his glass. He made sure to be especially noisy with his gurgling, just because he knew Osamu hated the sound. “It’s impossible for mom to be mad at me,” Atsumu mumbled, massaging his temples. “She likes me best.”

“Please check your head for injuries because if you had a working brain, I’m pretty sure you would know that mom likes  _ me  _ best.” 

“The fact that you called me at seven am just to  _ insult  _ me is evident on why you’ll never be mom’s favorite child.”

“Wrong. I had all the good intentions to congratulate you on the progress you’ve made on wooing Hinata Shouyou. And then you had to go around and be delusional about your non-status as no one’s favorite child,” Osamu said. “I had no choice but to call you out.”

“Oh my  _ god _ ,” Atsumu groaned, head in hands. It was far too early to be confronted with his very real, very deep attraction to Hinata Shouyou and the memory of the way he looked in the karaoke bar last night, a sight straight out of fantasies, sweat clinging to threadbare t-shirt and glistening at his temple. The thought of it made his pounding heart felt like it was going to split in two, and Osamu’s voice, tattling off in his ear, wasn’t helping his case. 

“I was wondering when you’d gather your balls,” Osamu was saying. “I mean, you all but proposed to him at Nationals seven years ago—”

“I’m hanging  _ up _ ,” Atsumu announced, forcefully pressing down at the red button to the blood-curling sound of Osamu’s cackle. Then he threw his phone on the bed, attempted and failed to get his bearings.

Miya Atsumu did not  _ pine _ , he reminded himself. 

He went after what he wanted. 

He thought of Hinata, sneaking extra practice time before Coach Foster arrived, leaping up to the ceiling as if in those years he spent alone in Brazil, he’d unlocked the secrets to bending gravity to his will. He thought about the way he tilted his head at Atsumu after an impossible spike of his got through, the way he did that at the same angle at the karaoke bar, his eyes too shiny to be anything less than flirtatious.

If he were a bit more awake, he’d ask himself why he didn’t jump at the first chance. Had Hinata been anyone else, Atsumu would’ve woken up with his legs tangled in his sheets, already devising an exit strategy that wouldn’t make things awkward during practice. He’d ask himself why Hinata was different.

As it were, he was more curious about said half-naked video that Osamu was complaining about. He had premonished that he would go viral in the morning, courtesy of Adriah’s live-vlogging, but it was always a delight to see how he would be perceived from a third person point of view. He picked his phone back up, ignoring the myriad of texts Osamu sent him in the interval seconds after he hung up, and pulled up Twitter. 

His mention tab was flooded, even more than usual. The top tweet was a video shared by Adriah himself, a full two-minutes of halfway decent footage of his duet with Hinata, ending just at the moment he pulled off his tank top. The many replies below bemoaned the fact that Adriah provided no video of actual shirtless Atsumu, which Barnes, always up for fanservice, replied with a more high-quality version of the last leg of the song, showing Atsumu grinding the air with his chest bare. 

_ Oh my god,  _ someone with his face for a profile picture said, and attached an appropriate Spongebob meme that said,  _ I never wanted to suck a dick so bad in my life, I swear.  _

Atsumu clicked out of the thread after. He loved a good ego-boost, but he wasn’t so far gone that he’d willingly read the indecent—and downright filthy—stuff that his fans cooked up online. There were some that made him wish he couldn’t read.

At a glance, it seemed the video was garnering the kind of reaction that he wanted. Except he started to notice a trend that made him frown the more he scrolled down. It wasn’t exactly bad, per se, but it was worrying to say the least—especially as it took the attention away from his and Hinata’s spectacle. 

Namely:

> **hoot hoot** **@bokumtoos**
> 
> i swear if bokuto isn't dating the editor guy!!!!!
> 
> **BEACH NINJA** **@hinatastatas**
> 
> the way bokuto skipped out on karaoke night just to flirt with mr. editor on Twitter dot com…... i want me a freak like that
> 
> **anna | bokuto lovebot** **@BOKYUTO**
> 
> hinata and miya were hot but oh my god bokuto is so lovesick it's not even funny anymore 😭😭 help THEY ARE SO CUTE

Earlier, during his call with Atsumu, he didn’t get a chance to name his one good/bad thing. Though his family of three used it as a way to catch up with each other’s lives, Atsumu had adopted it to his daily routine. It was a straightforward day to unwind after a long day, breaking up chunks of events into digestible good and bad, made the mess that he ran headlong into a little easier to sort through. Sometimes, when he was sure he was going to be facing a difficult day, he did it in the morning, too. 

Like today.

Atsumu put his phone face down and summarized.

One good thing: his karaoke duet with Hinata went viral.

One bad thing: for every five tweets thirsting over his abs, there were like, three tweets lamenting about how 'adorable' Bokuto's little 'flirtation' with Mysterious Mr. Editor was.

This was unacceptable for several reasons:

  1. People call that flirting? What? What _even_???
  2. Atsumu was, in fact, a vain little bitch who did not like it when things were not about him, especially when his abs were right there, next to God's best creation himself, Hinata Shouyou.
  3. Seriously, people call that _flirting?_
  4. He'd marched into practice twenty minutes later with every intention to chew Bokuto out for stealing his spotlight, only to be confronted with the sight of one sad, droopy owl-shaped hair moping in the locker room.



_No_. Completely unacceptable.

"What are you doing," Atsumu said, because the proper reaction to your flirtation becoming a trending topic was not to pine away half an hour before practice. He tried not to seethe with it. Bokuto's hair was already drooping too much. He resembled an owl in everything but physical form, but his eyes, like wide circles, were very much puppy-like. Sad and lost.

This guy was still  _ pining _ ?

Had he no sympathy for people like Atsumu?

"Ah, Tsum-Tsum," Bokuto said, less of a greeting and more just a statement of the fact. "Good morning."

He definitely did not look like he was having a good morning. Atsumu told him as much. Bokuto only shrugged. His movements were so minimal that it freaked Atsumu out.

With an annoyed sigh, he fished out his phone. It was already open to many tweets he bookmarked about Bokuto and his 'flirting' with Akaashi, and Bokuto scrolled through them with a defeated sort of outlook, still looking every bit as sad and lost as when Atsumu came in.

Atsumu sent a prayer up to the gods that he was not going to regret this.

With dread, he seated himself on a bench across from Bokuto. 

"You know," Atsumu began, folding his arms across his chest. "If I didn't know you, I would think you're already dating him."

Bokuto's head snapped up, eyes impossibly wider, and Atsumu tried not to twitch when Bokuto yelled out a frustrated, "Gwaahhh!" while covering both ears. "Do you think so, Tsum-Tsum? Am I being too obvious? Is it too much? Am I coming on too strong? Should I just move to another country and legally change my name? Should I sign up for a foreign league like Kageyama—"

"Bokkun," Atsumu said, with as much single-mother-dealing-with-a skulk-of-twins-fighting-over-afternoon-snacks energy as he could manage.

Bokuto shut up.

Atsumu blinked. So this is how it felt like to be his mother.

"You've known each other for an upwards of, what, 7 years at this point, right?" Atsumu said. "Don't you think that by this point you should know how Akaashi feels about you?"

“That’s the  _ thing _ ,” Bokuto grouched, setting down Atsumu’s phone like it personally wounded him. “I thought I did.”

Atsumu raised his eyebrows. “So you were rejected?”

Bokuto let out the most agonized sigh. Now Atsumu felt kind of like an asshole for barging in on him like this. 

“Not… exactly?” Bokuto said, looking at Atsumu as if he’d have a better answer. “I know that he liked me. He wouldn’t kiss me if he didn’t. But the days after he just… ghosted me. And on the rare occasion that he actually replied, it would be this curt, one-word reply, like he doesn’t actually want to talk to me.”

“He kissed you?” Atsumu said. “Well, what the hell, then. Shouldn’t that be your answer?”

“I told you, he ghosted me,” Bokuto said. “You probably couldn’t relate.”

Atsumu thought about all the hopeful one-night-stands he’d conveniently left on read, and felt more like an asshole for an entirely different reason. 

“Um,” Atsumu said. “No, definitely, I’ve been ghosted.”

Bokuto squinted his eyes at him suspiciously.

Atsumu quickly re-routed the conversation. “Why don’t you—I don’t know, go visit him? That’s what I’d do, if someone—I mean,  _ when _ someone ghosted me.”

Bokuto was totally not buying his bullshit, but he chose to ignore him because Bokuto was, unlike him, not an asshole. He slumped back against the lockers, worrying on his bottom lip. “That’s not me and Akaashi,” he shook his head. “I’d feel like I was violating his boundaries, you know?

Atsumu didn’t; relationships as a topic always eluded him. He usually dipped when it became too much work to maintain (read: when it became too serious and scared him, but you didn’t hear that from him), had had water thrown at his face a couple of times for breaking poor hearts. 

It occurred to him this moment that he’d wandered into this completely blind—he was grossly incompetent to help Bokuto with his situation with Akaashi. 

Thankfully, Bokuto seemed content just to have Atsumu listen. He wasn’t usually good at that, but there was no way he could back out now. “I think I’ve always loved him since high school. But I didn’t know the name of the feelings I had for him then, so I just… buried them deep,” he said. “We promised to keep in touch after I graduated, but with our schedules, his deadlines, practice and matches, it got really difficult, you know? And I was dealing with my—” he waved his hands around vaguely, looking, for the first time since Atsumu had known him, self-conscious.  "—bipolar diagnosis,” he finished in a smaller voice that didn’t fit him. “All the while he was also going to therapy for anxiety, so we both had a lot on our plates. There just wasn't a good time to start talking relationships. We've only started talking again because things have more or less calmed down since then, but—”

“But?” Atsumu prompted.

"I don't know," Bokuto shrugged, mournfully. "I read a whole manga series about zombies to understand him better. I can't sleep the whole night, and I still don't understand him. Maybe… maybe he's trying to let me down easy."

Atsumu felt himself deflate along with his spiker. Sympathy crept up his throat uncomfortably. "Oh, Bokkun—”

"I always depended on him, you know?” Bokuto ploughed on, “in high school. I know I can be too much, my mood swings are hard to deal with—and, I kinda ghosted him too for the better part of the last five years. I haven't been the best. So maybe… maybe karma’s come around and he realized he didn’t actually like me?”

"Bokkun…" Atsumu murmured, hating how small Bokuto seemed just now. He was always a large presence, making a spectacle of himself by doing flips on court just to incite laughter from the crowd. Sadness looked wrong on him.

Abruptly, Bokuto stood up, stretching his arms behind his head. "Argh, but what am I doing?” he wrung his hands, smiling as though he’d completely gotten over it. Atsumu, reeling from the whiplash, didn’t react when Bokuto lightly punched his bicep (which,  _ ouch _ —Atsumu was, proportionally, thicker in composition, being three centimeters shorter and two kilograms heavier, but Bokuto really ought to stop underestimating his strength). “I shouldn't be getting all emo like this! Come on, Tsum-Tsum, let's practice some spikes! I wanna get some in before the Coach comes!"

With that, he bounded into the gym, a spring in his step that felt so… feigned. Atsumu blinked, rubbing softly at his upper arm. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had somehow made things worse. 

_ This is why we don’t butt in anybody’s business _ , a voice that sounded frighteningly like Osamu said in his head. He stared cluelessly ahead, unsure if he should carry on like Bokuto didn’t just go from zero to a hundred-twenty in unsettling speed or attempt to salvage the situation. 

He eyed his phone with profound resignation in his chest. 

When Hinata walked in, surprised to find Atsumu and Bokuto already at the gym but no less pleased, he caught Atsumu muffling his scream into the palm of his hands. He blinked twice, looked between Bokuto out on the court, practicing his lonely passing drill, and Atsumu, who was regretting all the life choices he’d made to get to this point, and decided to comment on none of it. 

Atsumu decided this was why half the league was in love with him.

*

So now Atsumu was officially meddling.

This was not good.

But half of the things he’d done in his life were not either, so whatever. He followed Akaashi Keiji’s account—a measly three-hundred follower count, an empty bio, a generic mirror selfie that obscured his face, and tweets that were mostly book reviews—and after the latter precariously  (he could just  _ tell _ )  followed him back , Atsumu proceeded on to direct message.

> **bestmiya:**  
>  hi keiji
> 
> **bestmiya:** listen, this is probably out of line, but i really need you to fix this thing with bokuto
> 
> **bestmiya:** he's all bummed out about it
> 
> **bestmiya:** he's not playing his best (not that he isn’t good but yk he COULD be better) and we're like, this close to facing up against ejp raijin
> 
> **bestmiya:** i have to beat suna. or else my brother's never gonna let me live
> 
> **akaashikeiji:** So you know you're out of line. Yet you continue to speak to me. 
> 
> **bestmiya:** come on :( everyone and their mother know you like him. and he likes you!!!! what is so hard??
> 
> **akaashikeiji:** You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Please refrain from sending me any more DMs or I will block you. Thank you for your understanding.
> 
> **bestmiya:** OKAY OKAY WAIT
> 
> **bestmiya:** look. the match is on next saturday
> 
> **bestmiya:** i have two spare tickets
> 
> **bestmiya:** would you please just come? u can even bring ur weird friend w u
> 
> **akaashikeiji** : He's my co-worker, and his name is Udai Tenma. That's very kind of you, but please, do not talk to me. Ever again.

His messages after that were not delivered. Atsumu cursed. Akaashi really just blocked him. He supposed it really couldn’t be helped; plus, he insulted his co-worker. 

Not to be out of ideas, Atsumu searched the name of Akaashi’s co-worker. His account had thirteen hundred more followers than Akaashi, a whole paragraph in his bio, and accumulated about fifty thousand tweets since joining… six months ago? Atsumu barely shut up, but damn. 

He followed the account. Within seconds, he was followed back.

> **bestmiya:**  
>  hey uh keiji's...co-worker? friend???
> 
> **udai10ma:** ??? who's this
> 
> **udai10ma:** do u need something

Atsumu blinked.  _ Why would you follow back if you didn’t know who I am? _

> **bestmiya:**  
>  its miya, the setter
> 
> **udai10ma:** oh ur onigira miya's brother!!!

_ Onigiri Miya’s bro _ —

Deep breaths. Five seconds in, five seconds out. Gracefully, Atsumu let this go.  _ Just for this once. _

> **bestmiya:**  
>  look, i know you must be aware of the situation with keiji and bokuto
> 
> **udai10ma:** oh yeah the yearning is on high rn
> 
> **udai10ma:** i asked him for a deadline extension and he said yes
> 
> **udai10ma:** he NEVER said yes before
> 
> **udai10ma:** it’s so terrifying i ended up finishing AHEAD of deadline

Atsumu spared two seconds to wonder just how someone so muted like Akaashi could attract such…  _ unique  _ characters into his life. 

> **bestmiya:**  
>  cool so i got the solution
> 
> **bestmiya:** since keiji’s ignoring bokuto, i thought the only way to get them to talk is to bring them together
> 
> **bestmiya:** literally
> 
> **bestmiya:** i have two tickets for next week’s match against ejp raijin. edion arena, osaka. reserved family seats with backstage pass
> 
> **bestmiya:** pls bring keiji
> 
> **udai10ma:** sure thing :D can i ask a question tho
> 
> **bestmiya:** shoot
> 
> **udai10ma:** can u ask ur brother if he's going to open a vendor at the stadium
> 
> **udai10ma:** that might be the only way to get keiji to come

Atsumu did not scream. 

> **bestmiya:**  
>  of course :)))
> 
> **udai10ma:** :D :D

See how mature Atsumu had gotten?

*

”So…” 

Atsumu looked up to see Hinata hovering near him, his hands behind his back, peering at him curiously but politely. Post-practice, Atsumu was once again treated with the delicious sight of him with his hair half-dried, the smell of his shampoo something minty and sharp, like a wake-up call. 

“You  _ were  _ scheming,” he said, leaning closer. Atsumu returned his phone to the inside pocket of his MSBY jacket. “See? You were totally scheming.”

“You caught me, Shouyou-kun,” Atsumu smirked. 

Hinata plopped himself right next to Atsumu.  _ Eucalyptus _ , Atsumu’s mind irreversibly supplied. It should put him off that Hinata smelled like aromatherapy, but once again, Hinata was an exception to every rule Atsumu had previously established. It was like he’d made it his personal mission to knock everything in Atsumu’s life off course, like when he was a child and he waddled through a house of cards, toppling everything down. 

“Is it about Bokuto-san?” Hinata asked. 

“He was just—” Atsumu made a face. “So  _ lovesick _ . It’s annoying.”

Hinata hummed his agreement. “I really thought they were already dating.”

“ _Right_?” Atsumu turned to face him. “You saw them at the izakaya after the Adlers game, right? Old married couple, actin’ all lovey-dovey. Makes me sick sometimes thinkin’ about them not dating.”

“Why?” Hinata asked him.

Atsumu thought about this. “‘Cause they’re so obviously in love,” he said. “Y’know, like one of those couples that you look at and you think,  _ oh _ , they just make sense together. It’s wrong that they’re not together. Destined or fated or whatever, all that crap.” 

“The other half,” Hinata murmured.

“—yeah,” Atsumu agreed after a beat. Hinata had that look in his eyes that he’d come to dub the thousand-year stare; not quite reflective, but deeper than simply reminiscing. Like he was reliving his past all at once. It made Atsumu squirm, seeing him like that. He always said he didn’t need memories—and he meant it, he was never the type to linger on what-ifs and should’ve beens—but to Hinata, they seemed like things he held dear. 

It made him so hyper aware of all the ways he didn’t know Hinata. 

And yet.

Here he was. 

“You think Akaashi-san’s his other half?” Hinata asked. “Bokuto-san, I mean.”

Atsumu blinked. “I mean, he has to be, right? They’ve known each other since high school and haven’t managed to outgrow one another. That has to mean something.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Soulmates and all that.”

Atsumu was never the kind to think before he spoke, and so the force of the words hit him way too late. All at once, he understood what this was all about. He closed his eyes against the rush of bitterness that flooded past his teeth. 

It was impressive that he managed to keep his smile on throughout. 

“You know, Atsumu-san,” Hinata murmured after a while. Atsumu made himself look at him, at the way his head was tilted again in that specific angle, the one that made him really  _ see  _ who he was, the strength and the fire that burned under his skin. “You act like you don’t care.”

Atsumu snorted. “Shouyou-kun, yer hardly the first person to notice.”

“That’s the thing,” Hinata interjected. “I think you  _ do  _ care. A whole lot. You just act like you don’t.”

Atsumu had spent the last twenty three years of his life being told he needed to shut his trap sometimes, and he never listened because words always came easy to him. Sarcastic in middle school, mean and sometimes a downright bully in high school, to getting broken down and knocked around the first few years of his professional volleyball career—his words had never failed him, a reliable companion regardless of whether he needed to push or pull the people around him. 

So it was a betrayal of the highest kind that words chose to leave him right at this moment, face to face with the sun personified himself, gaping after an earth-shattering revelation.

.... well, the last one was kind of an exaggeration, because Osamu had made that same observation about himself, some handful of years ago, and that was just it, right? That was  _ Osamu _ . He’d shared the uterus with him. Atsumu didn’t have to hide anything.

Hinata knowing that he  _ cared _ implied that Atsumu had a heart. One that was locked up and mangled and healed wrong after that time in fifth grade that grief broke his back, but breakable all the same, red and bleeding. 

He imagined Hinata could see it, all the mismatched parts, the scars and the pieces that never fit right. 

He huffed, tried to laugh it off even when his throat felt dry. “I need my spikers in top shape, Shouyou-kun,” he said indiginantly. “Not that Bokuto’s playin' badly—he just, he could be better, y’know? And we’re playin' against Sunarin, so there ain't no way—”

Hinata touched his shoulder.

“Atsumu-san,” he said. “ _ Atsumu _ . It’s okay.” A shaky laugh. “It’s not  _ bad _ . I think it’s kinda sweet, actually.”

Traitorous words lodged themselves in his windpipe and burned at his tongue, leaving only ash behind. Atsumu couldn’t speak, too hyper aware of their proximity, Hinata’s body heat piercing through fabric and straight to bare skin, a furnace. 

“Shouyou,” he managed to say. “Flattery gets ya everywhere.”

“Where’s that exactly?” Hinata asked. “With you?”

*

A fact about Atsumu: he knew when he wasn’t wanted. 

He wasn’t some asshole who pushed even when he’d already been rebuffed. He had more dignity than that. He’d argue that dealing with rejection was easier; he’d had a whole lifetime to live with a broken heart, so it would hardly be anything new. In fact, it was easier if he operated on the assumption that his heart was going to get broken. Kinda like meal-prepping: when he opened that bento box, he already knew what he was going into. 

He mulled over the words he said to Hinata, about Bokuto and Akaashi.

The perfect teen-lit: high school sweethearts, destined to be together.

The perfect romance: through thick and thin, distance, a fulfilled promise. 

The fact that when he wasn’t thinking of Hinata and Kageyama, he  _ still  _ was thinking of Hinata and Kageyama. 

He wasn’t proud of the way he’d stood up abruptly after that last question, playing it off as a joke and abruptly changing the subject. He wasn’t proud of the way something in Hinata’s face shuttered, the way the smile that Hinata sent him after was not as bright as he remembered, sickly sweet instead. Like he was forcing it. 

He’d offered Hinata to walk him to his dorm, and Hinata had declined, mumbling something about running some errand or the other that Atsumu could see for what it was: an excuse. 

That was okay. Atsumu could handle rejection.

Once at home, Atsumu felt more ready to jump out of his skin than relax. He paced his living room, tried to boil water for coffee but kept getting distracted by the trinkets on the end table. His hands and feet felt strange, like they weren't his. He was restless.

Another fact: this was the last year Kageyama would play in a national league for a while. Next year, he’d transfer to a foreign league, playing with the likes of Nicholas Romero. He would be away. 

Atsumu understood being a stepping stone; eventually, you would be left behind. Sometimes, just to get a semblance of normalcy, you’d latch onto the first good thing you found, make it yours. For Atsumu, it had been volleyball. He’d never kid himself to think that he was something  _ good _ , but he could be. If he tried hard enough. He  _ wanted  _ to try. One day, Kageyama would be back, and that’d be the expiry date. That was okay. Knowing things would end made things easier to navigate; if it ended up falling apart—if  _ he  _ ended up falling apart—he could always say,  _ oh well, it’s never meant to last, anyway.  _

It wouldn’t be his fault.

He called Osamu.

Osamu sounded annoyed. Atsumu wasn’t surprised. In Hyogo, he bet the dinner crowd was closing in, starving after a day’s work. “Better make it important, Tsumu, or I swear—”

“Are there any dramas where the second male lead ends up with the main girl?” Atsumu asked.

“... yer really calling me at  _ rush hour  _ to ask me about fuckin’  _ dramas _ —”

“Does that only happen when the main hero dies?” Atsumu said. “Would the main hero have to do something inescapably bad that can’t be justified with any logic or reason for the main girl to finally consider the second leading man?”

Osamu’s voice was quiet, confused. “I guess so,” he murmured. “There are a couple of dramas, though, like—”

“So if—” Atsumu said, feeling like he was _this_ close to being hysterical, “if there’s a chance that the main girl looks at you—I mean the second leading man—he should take it, right? Even if the main girl, at some level, will always be in love with the main hero? Like it’s either that or being dead as a plot device, so—he should take what he can get. ‘Cause maybe that’s the best he’ll ever have. And he should be happy with that.”

“Tsumu,” Osamu said, and Atsumu hated how he sounded breathless, like he was  _ worried _ . “Are—is this still about dramas? It isn’t. I don’t feel like it is. Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay, the fuck kind of question is that.”

“Really? You sound like you’re hyperventilating, so—”

“I’m  _ not _ , shut up, Samu.”

“Yer the one who called!”

Atsumu shut his eyes, pressed two fingers until stars exploded behind his eyelids. He read once in an encyclopedia that in some billion years, the sun would grow into an enormous side and swallow everything whole. He imagined it’d feel a lot like how his head felt right now. “Yer right,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Osamu said without hesitation. “No, hold on, lemme—hey, Tappei, can ya cover for me, I got an important call—thanks, man.” A rustling, then, clearer than it had been, “Ya wanna talk about it?”

Atsumu tried not to feel sorry about Osamu excusing himself for work just to comfort him. He didn’t ask Osamu to, so he shouldn’t have to say thank you. 

“Not really,” Atsumu said. 

“Okay,” Osamu said. “... so, EJP Raijin re-match in a week. Ya think ya can beat Rintarou this time?”

Atsumu thought about Hinata, feet lifting off the ground like a bird mid-flight, a hand that always felt in sync with his own. He thought about wanting something so badly that even when he didn’t actively work for it, he got it, as if the universe heard him manifesting it hard enough. He wondered if that was the opposite of fate, where everything had to line up perfectly for a prophecy to become true. 

“Oh, yeah,” he said it like a promise. “We’re crushing him this time.”

*

Team outings weren’t nearly as fun without Bokuto, he was loath to admit, so Meian made sure to drag him bodily into the communal living area for a night of board games. Sakusa had shockingly expressed an interest in participating, even if much of his intention was motivated by the will to beat each and every one of them and prove that he was, in fact, the smartest of them all. 

Atsumu didn’t know why Sakusa bothered trying. It wasn’t like any of the guys ever claimed to be smarter than Sakusa. 

Soda was not allowed within the premises of their dorm—even a drop of it would be enough to cause their nutritionist to combust—and since alcohol was highly discouraged this close to a game, Inunaki passed around yakult instead. 

“Oh,  _ man _ ,” Hinata said, emitting noises that shouldn’t be legal as he emptied the tiny plastic bottle in under ten seconds. “I miss these a lot while I was in Brazil.”

“They don’t have Asian grocery stores?” Bokuto asked.

“They’re not as common,” Hinata explained. “Also, it gets pretty expensive in Rio. I don’t make a lot as a delivery boy.”

“You were a delivery boy?” Adriah said, whistling. “Man, if my delivery boy looks like you…”

“Can we  _ please  _ not be horny for one second?” Sakusa demanded. He’d set up the Monopoly board on the table, laying out pieces and stacks of money neatly on each side. Their weapon of choice for tonight. Atsumu was positive nobody was getting out of this unscathed, and his Twitter was  _ so  _ ready for content. 

“ _ We _ ?” Adriah wiggled his eyebrows. “That includes you, Sakusa?”

Sakusa sent him a withering glare. 

Hinata laughed nervously. 

“New rule,” Sakusa announced. “Any time anyone is found thirsting over Hinata, you have to give away a dollar. Now please pick a game piece before I brain you with my hydroflask.”

Cramping together a bunch of competitive volleyball players to play one of the most ruthless board games ever created was probably a disaster waiting to happen, but Atsumu was kind of looking forward to it. Maybe he'd get to see an ugly side of Hinata, if he even had one at all. Maybe it'd be ugly enough that Atsumu stopped loving him. 

*

It took an hour before things started to derail.

> **Miya Atsumu**  
>  @bestmiya
> 
> you know what they say… monopoly breaks friendships
> 
> [picture: Inunaki standing on his chair to be at eye-level with Barnes, who has his arms over his chest and a cross expression, unimpressed with Inunaki, who seemed to be yelling at him while waving around a couple of one dollar bills.]
> 
> 98 replies | 288 retweets | 769 likes
> 
> **Miya Atsumu** @bestmiya
> 
> oh my god… he busted out the swear jar
> 
> [picture: Meian slamming down an empty glass jar on the table, Inunaki and Barnes reaching out to sullenly put forth a dollar from their reserve, Sakusa and Bokuto intent on the game in the background, Hinata giving a peace sign in between them, grinning bright enough to rival the sun]
> 
> 79 replies | 500 retweets | 2007 likes
> 
> **Miya Atsumu** @bestmiya
> 
> [Adriah flipping the game in frustration, the rest of the MSBY Black Jackals screaming bloody murder in the background]
> 
> 146 replies | 2948 retweets | 3049 likes
> 
> **STREAM #HWASAMARIA** @miyamoo
> 
> _ in reply to  _ _ @bestmiya _
> 
> the way this needs no caption 😭😭
> 
> **Miya Atsumu** @bestmiya
> 
> resuming (@Adriah_T is on a timeout)
> 
> [picture: Sakusa painstakingly re-setting the board, fuming so hard you could almost see steam coming out of his ears] [picture: a selfie of Adriah and Atsumu, the former flipping the camera off, while Atsumu stuck his tongue out cheekily]
> 
> **Miya Atsumu** @bestmiya
> 
> IN A STARTLING TURN OF EVENTS… CONGRATULATIONS @KOUTAROU12 YOU ABSOLUTE CAPITALIST MONSTER
> 
> [picture: Bokuto raising his two fists in the air, whooping while Hinata hyped him up] [picture: a selfie of Barnes, Inunaki, Meian, Hinata and Atsumu, with one hand, giving the Bokuto Beam up at a smiling Bokuto] [picture: Sakusa joining Adriah at the corner, looking like he's been mortally wounded, Adriah reaching out hesitantly to pack his back, deterred by the dark aura coming off of Sakusa] 
> 
> 308 replies | 3949 retweets | 7893 likes
> 
> **BOKUTO** @koutarou12
> 
> YOU COULDN'T SPEND EVERY NIGHT AT TRAINING CAMP PLAYING MONOPOLY BEFORE BEDTIME AND NOT GET GOOD AT IT :D :D
> 
> [picture: a selfie Bokuto took of the 2012 Fukurodani high school starting line-up and their managers, the girls squished on either side of Bokuto, throwing up peace signs, grinning. In the background, Konoha was shoving at Sarukui and Komi, trying to squeeze in. Washio's head was out of shot, his thumbs-up barely visible. Akaashi was behind Bokuto, looking not at the camera, but at the smiling captain, somewhere between fond and exasperated. Mostly fond, though] [picture: previously posted selfie of the team giving Bokuto the Bokuto Beam, this time with floating Adriah and Sakusa heads tacked on]
> 
> **not from Naruto** @Konoha_Akinori
> 
> _ in reply to  _ _ @koutarou12 _
> 
> best from this to this tweet ever
> 
> **TRANSPORT PHENOMENA OUT IN CINEMAS** @KomiCon
> 
> _ in reply to @Konoha_Akinori @koutarou12 _
> 
> ah, yes, the night we almost sold our friendship for property rights...
> 
> **chia ceo of bokuto's arm** @bokuatsu
> 
> WAIT BOKUTO WENT TO SCHOOL WITH @KOMICON?????? WHAT
> 
> **Manifesting Jackasuke** @pporappippam
> 
> ISN'T THAT MR EDITOR??? ITS @AKAASHIKEIJI RIGHT??????? IM FREAKING OUT
> 
> **eva || ADLERS SUPERLATIVES POLL** @serveyama
> 
> seriously wondering what the 2012-2014(ish??) high school volleyball season was like cos i felt like everyone famous now either played volleyball during that time or knew someone from that circle lmaoo

“It’s a bloodbath in there,” a voice said. 

Atsumu didn’t have to turn to know it was Hinata. He heard the balcony door slide close, and felt Hinata approach him, bracing his elbows on the railing. His breath came out in puffs. Atsumu had been cold for a while, but it was almost a welcome change —he swore the temperature in the communal living area kept increasing the longer they played, even with the air-conditioner cranked down low. 

“Sakusa-san is now accusing Bokuto-san of cheating,” Hinata reported. “Inunaki wants a rematch, but he keeps getting vetoed.”

Atsumu snickered. “I don’t think it’d be healthy for any of us if we keep playing. Omi-kun might actually end up murdering someone.”

“Then we’d be out of a player in the EJP Raijin game,” Hinata sighed. 

“How’re ya feeling?” Atsumu asked. “About not being in the starting line-up?”

Barnes, having healed from his light sprain, was back again as a regular. Coach Foster was sure to mix things up once they got the game going, and there was no way they’d let a player like Hinata warm the bench for all of three sets (he was going to win this 3-0, mark his words), but these things meant a lot to Hinata. He thought he and Hinata were similar in that way; his first love had been volleyball, and not being on the court felt like a mistake, like a shirt that pinched at the armpits, buttoned-up all wrong. 

“I feel…” Hinata searched the sky, as if the words would be written in the constellations. “Fine, I guess? I’m not bummed out or anything. I’m excited to see a whole two-meter-tall cannon Oliver Barnes wreck the opposing team.” His smile turned into a smirk, devilish. “It’ll be like a whole new different team.”

With Barnes as the main attacker, the Jackals’ offense power was at a maximum. It’d be a straight-forward play, a game of strength and height, volleyball in the most traditional, conventional sense. He’d even argue that in brute strength, Barnes would easily topple Ushijima. With Hinata, the Jackals’ turned into a wild card. Always dynamic, always a mystery—would he set or spike the ball this time? Would he play as decoy? Hinata kept them all on their toes, guessing.

It was this awe of Hinata that set his tongue loose, and before he could stop himself, Atsumu said, “I’ll miss tossing to you, though.”

Hinata didn’t miss a beat. “You’ll get a chance to toss to me in plenty of other games.” 

_ A chance _ . It would almost seem pejorative, if Atsumu wasn’t already wrapped around his pretty little finger. As if he was begging for it, and Hinata had all the upper hand. Maybe this was that ugly side of Hinata: the way he held power over people, and yet unaware of it. 

He shuffled close so their arms were touching, fabric to fabric. Atsumu felt too hot in his body. “Cold, isn’t it?” Hinata said. 

Atsumu breathed out. “No,” he said, something strangled in his throat. “Not really.”

*

In an encyclopedia, he read,  _ some billion of years ago, you and I, the sun, and everything in this universe, was once a massive star.  _

In a book he read in a secondhand store while waiting for Osamu to pick him up from the train station in Hyogo,  _ whatever our souls are made of _ — _ stardust, galaxies _ — _ his and mine are the same. _

*

In bed, unable to fall asleep, thinking to himself,  _ those words aren’t meant for people like him and I.  _

*

They finished the match in four sets, winning three to one. Barnes played for two full sets, lulling the opposite blockers into a sense of victory once they figured out how to block his spikes, before being subbed out by Hinata, who threw everything off-kilter and won them two more sets. 

_ Ninja Shouyou is a monster,  _ Atsumu could imagine the headlines in a few minutes.  _ No one could stop the mighty force of one Hinata Shouyou.  _

Suna shook his hand under the net, firm as ever. “Now we’re even,” he said. 

“We won in four sets though,” Atsumu said. “So technically, I won more matches.”

“So full of shit, Atsumu,” Suna grinned, his grip on his hand vice-like. Atsumu vigorously did not wince. “I see not much had changed.”

Washio and Bokuto bumped chests, and Atsumu saw Washio say something to Bokuto and point to the stands. Bokuto looked startled, eyes moving rapidly across the crowd, widening like a bird locking onto its prey once he found who he was looking for. Atsumu smirked inwardly—there he was, one frazzled Akaashi Keiji, who definitely could not outrun a professional athlete at his prime, no matter how hard he tried.

_ You’re welcome,  _ he thought to himself.

A couple of post-game interviews and a half-hour of dicking around at Osamu’s onigiri stand (he wore Osamu’s cap and pretended to sell onigiri, still in his jersey, while Osamu went to cozy up with Suna—the face that he made when he returned was  _ priceless,  _ 10/10 would do it again) later, Atsumu trudged back into the main hall, sweat dried off but twice as dirty. He planned on taking a quick shower and taking off immediately to the friendly dinner that Meian’s wife prepared at her new yakiniku restaurant—most of his teammates had left already, and while Atsumu made it a statement to arrive fashionably late to things, he did not want to miss yakiniku night.

He turned to the hallway that led to the team’s showers, and found instead Hinata, rubbing a towel at his face while looking at his phone, all casual. Atsumu felt like he had to contact a coroner soon if finding Hinata post-shower was going to be a regular occurrence. 

“Shouyou-kun!” he waved anyway, because he was Icarus and he loved the sun far too much. “I thought you’d left with the others.”

“Ah, no,” he shook his head. “I got held up talking to Kageyama.”

“Oh, Tobio-kun came? Why didn’t he come say hi?” Atsumu said cheerily, because on top of being a recovering asshole, he was also a good liar. “I would’ve loved to see him!”

“He came in with a disguise, so even if you  _ had  _ seen him, you wouldn’t probably recognize him,” Hinata shook his head. “Although his disguise totally looked terrible, dumbass really thought wearing a hat and sunglasses  _ while  _ wearing the Adlers team jacket would make him  _ less  _ suspicious—”

“Ah, that’s just Tobio-kun, isn’t it?” Atsumu laughed. “Anyway, you wanna Uber with me to the yakiniku place?”

Hinata looked at him. 

“Or—maybe not? You have other plans?” Atsumu was blabbering, but now that the words were out of his mouth, he couldn’t let go of the ideas.  _ Does he have plans? Does he make them with Kageyama? Where are they going, what are they doing?  _ “You should probably tell Captain, he gets sad when his best decoy skips out on team dinners—”

“Atsumu.”

Hinata took a step forward. Atsumu stayed where he was.

This was it, right?

“Atsumu,” Hinata said, and it was soft, softer than anyone had any business saying his name. “Look at me.”

Atsumu pointedly looked at the space next to Hinata’s ear.

Hinata placed his fingers on Atsumu’s jaw, then, slowly,  _ slowly  _ turned his head to face him. “There,” he murmured. Nowhere left to go, Atsumu thought. He probably looked disgusting, his hair all matted to his forehead and his skin sticky with sweat, but Hinata was looking at him like—

Like he didn’t care. 

“Do you believe in the idea of other halves, Atsumu-san?” he asked, a reenactment of their earlier conversation.

“... I don’t know,” Atsumu said, barely above a whisper. His throat felt raw, parched as if he’d run a mile without touching a drop of water. 

“The Greek myth,” Hinata started.

“Two heads, two sets of limbs?” Atsumu cut in. “I know.”

“I think that’s wrong,” Hinata opined. “I think we’re already whole alone.”

Atsumu’s laugh was shaky and without mirth. Gently, he covered Hinata’s hand with his, lowering it down to rest at Hinata’s side, away from his face. “Shouyou-kun,” he said, and this was it—the moment the second leading man got the best ending he could hope for. “You don’t have to lie to yourself. I know he means a lot to you.” His hand itched at the emptiness, bereft now that he knew what touching Hinata felt like. “If you could only give me half of your heart, I’d take it.”

This was as close as Atsumu would get to begging, and in front of Hinata, he lay himself bare. His disfigured heart, beating hard and awful in his chest, he offered it to Hinata on a silver platter. He was waiting for Hinata to pierce his fingers through it, finally ruin him for anybody else, like Atsumu had wanted him to do since the first time he saw him across the net.

And Hinata, earnest, kind Hinata, he looked at Atsumu and ground out, “How dare  _ you _ .”

He was furious now, the fire that Atsumu always knew to be inside him ablaze behind his irises. “How dare you, Atsumu-san, to think of me so poorly as to— _ use  _ you as some kind of rebound,” he hissed. “I’m not some lovesick kid pining my life away for a guy I met in high school.”

Atsumu wanted to protest, wanted to deny and make Hinata understand that,  _ see, it’s not that I think you would be so cruel as to use me and leave me, it’s that I don’t mind if you want to _ —but he realized that Hinata was right. Inadvertently, though only in his head, he’d come to refer to Hinata as that—the other half of that freak duo he faced off in high school, one part of Kageyama. 

“I like you, Atsumu-san,” Hinata said, in a rush like he didn’t know if he’d have the courage to say it again in the next minute. He ran a hand through his wet hair. “I haven’t always—I have to say that I was more terrified of you than anything in high school—but that moment at Nationals, when you told me you’d set for me one day? I think about it all the time, Atsumu.”

_ Oh _ .

“I thought—defeating Kageyama would feel like coming home,” Hinata admitted. He looked so vulnerable like this, towel over his shoulders and looking down, and Atsumu tried to take it in. This moment, all the fragility that came with it. “If he’s my other half, I thought, defeating him would be this momentous thing where the world turned upside down, and at the end of it, we'd be standing there, face to face. But I just felt… relieved.” 

He licked his lips, looked up at Atsumu gravely. “I felt  _ whole _ . Like now, I can maybe… look at things…” he moved even closer, all up in Atsumu’s space like he always belonged in it, and maybe he had, because this felt inevitable, somewhat, “... that are right in front of me.”

“ _ Shouyou. _ ”

“Atsumu, I really, really _like_ —”

Atsumu kissed him, briefly at first, then deeper the second time. Their lips made a smacking noise that honestly would send Atsumu to a fit of laughter if his chest wasn’t pumped full of warm, disgusting  _ feelings _ , and when Atsumu let him go, Hinata had the  _ gall  _ to look stunned. Like Atsumu wasn’t going to kiss the shit out of him for that heartfelt confession alone. “How dare you, Hinata Shouyou,” Atsumu said, cupping Hinata’s face in his hands, his words a ghost on Hinata’s lips. “How dare you have the  _ audacity  _ to like me back when I’d made peace with only having half of you.”

“Do you really know me, Atsumu-san?” Hinata replied, a cheeky call back to the night at the karaoke bar. “I never do things by halves.”

*

Kissing Hinata was an experience. 

Like with most things that came into his possession, Hinata treated it with the utmost passion. His arms snaked around Atsumu’s neck, then his lips parted, then there was  _ tongue _ and Hinata was burying his nose in the juncture where his neck gave way to shoulder, and Atsumu had a mini heart-attack thinking about how much he must  _ stink,  _ but Hinata only grinned up devilishly at him, licking a stripe down the column of his throat. 

“You’re fine,” Hinata assured, low, and it was going to kill him, this trait of Hinata’s that seemed to know Atsumu inside out. Hinata was going to  _ see  _ him, past all the assholery and dickassery,  _ know  _ him further than skin-deep, and Atsumu was going to  _ let  _ him. How fucking  _ terrifying.  _

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Atsumu declared.

It felt so much like high school, making out in the hallway like this. A cliche of the worst kind. Atsumu licked into Hinata’s mouth anyway, reveling in the sound that Hinata made, the way his name came out of his mouth in a breathy sort of way. Atsumu wanted to hear it again and again. 

He’d had no delusions that Hinata would be some bashful twenty-something, not when this was the same person who packed up and left to break down his body and build it up from ground zero when he was barely old enough to drive. The reality couldn’t be better—having Hinata back him up against the wall, scrambling to push open the door to the locker room, situated right next to the showers, and,  _ oh _ , Hinata’s hand was rucking up his shirt, touching length of his spine—

A crash sprang them apart. Breathing heavily, they looked at themselves—there was no way anyone with a working pair of eyes would not know what they’d just gotten up to—and away, embarrassed (god,  _ Atsumu  _ was embarrassed, this was bad— _Hinata_ was bad). 

The locker was supposed to be empty. 

They eyed each other, half in curiosity, half in panic. Right?

Except. 

More noise. Banging against metal. 

Atsumu held up his fist.  _ Be quiet,  _ he told Hinata with his eyes.  _ Follow me.  _ Hinata nodded, and together, they tiptoed down to the back row of the lockers, where Atsumu hunched the noise might be coming from. 

And he found—

“What the  _ fuck _ , Bokkun! What are you doing?”

“Me? What are  _ you  _ doing?”

“Yer here first! I should ask  _ you  _ what  _ you’re  _ doing!”

In an attempt to salvage some pretense of dignity, Atsumu swiveled around, wishing his eyes weren’t burning. Hinata was already ahead of him, dutifully staring at the ceiling, as if wishing the fluorescence would take him away. 

“Well, you’re also here! I should think that what you’re about to get up is also nothing good!”

“I was about to  _ shower, _ Bokkun!”

“The shower’s  _ that  _ way, Tsumu-Tsumu!”

“Bokuto-san,” that voice was, blessedly, Akaashi’s, low and long-suffering. Atsumu could relate. None of them wished they were in this situation right now. “Please, put on your pants.”

“ _ I did not need to hear that _ —”

“ _ Akaashi!  _ Why would you say that out loud!”

Hinata buried his face in his hands. Atsumu could really, really relate.

A metal clink— _ belt loops, _ his mind unhelpfully identified, which could only belong to Akaashi, since Bokuto actively refused to wear anything but gym shorts or joggers, which meant Akaashi was—

_ Nope _ . 

Hinata’s phone chose the most inconvenient time to ring. Atsumu watched him pick it up with dread, trying to sound as normal as possible.

He ended up overcompensating. 

“Captain!” he all but shouted. “... no, um, of course we’re coming. By ‘we’ I mean of course Atsumu and I. Bokuto-san? He’s—” In horror, Hinata turned to Bokuto, who was finally thankfully decent, and mouthed,  _ are you coming?  _ Bokuto nodded vehemently. “—oh, I saw him just now! Hi, Bokuto-san! Yes, yes—we’re ordering a taxi as we speak! Sorry to keep you waiting, Captain! See you soon!”

An uncomfortable silence descended upon them. Akaashi looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole. Atsumu had never felt this much secondhand embarrassment in his entire life, and that was including the time he watched a public proposal go wrong after one of his matches. He supposed this was his doing, as he was the one who invited Akaashi to the game.

Atsumu cleared his throat. “Let’s not—let’s pretend this never happened.”

“Agreed,” Bokuto said, sounding like he thought death would be kinder.

*

Here was the plan:

  1. Atsumu was going to take a very quick shower.
  2. While doing that, he would also try to wash off the trauma of accidentally looking at your teammate’s dick.
  3. (But fuck him if Bokuto wasn’t _packing_.)
  4. He was not going to compare sizes. He was going to finish his shower in record time, clean off as much dirt and grime and secondhand embarrassment as he could with standard-issued soap and hot water, then get dressed, and show up at his very nice, very benevolent captain’s wife’s yakiniku restaurant.



Here was the obstacle to that plan:

  1. Hinata Shouyou, slipping into his shower. 



“How are you  _ horny  _ again?” Atsumu wondered. The memory of what he’d seen was probably enough to make him abstain from looking at his own dick for the foreseeable future, but if he was nudged in the right direction—

By a certain tangerine-haired menace—

“How are you  _ not _ ?” Hinata asked, gesturing at his body, and. Yeah. 

“Listen, I just saw Bokuto’s dick and for the longest time I thought I couldn’t have you, so  _ fight me  _ if I’m still a little emotional, this has been such a rollercoaster ride— _ oh my god Shouyou what are you doing we only have five minutes _ —”

Hinata looked up from his knees. Okay,  _ okay,  _ he was so on board with this. 

So fucking on board. 

“That’s more than enough,” Hinata declared, and proceeded to blow his mind. 

*

Outside, Akaashi put his hands over his face and groaned in despair. 

“I don’t think I want to come to your matches anymore, Bokuto-san.”

“ _ Akaashi! _ ”

*

A note on love, wanting something so badly your chest hurt, and being the second leading man:

It wasn’t so bad. 

Atsumu was willing to acquiesce that half of it was the work of magic, sure. But the other half was a series of calculated decisions. The odds that he’d find the love of his life on a volleyball court, standing across the net at barely a hundred-sixty centimeters, tangerine-haired and jumping like the law of gravity was no use on him, was slim. Close to none. It was unlikely that something like this could happen again in this lifetime or even the next. Perhaps by then, the sun would’ve swallowed everything whole and made volleyball obsolete. He’d be willing to give that one to magic. (Fate. Destiny. Whatever.)

But the rest of it? It was their own doing.

It was Hinata who chose to try out for the Black Jackals. It was Hinata who chose to fall in love. It was Hinata who spent Sundays lounging around in his living room, wearing an oversized ratty old sweatshirt that Atsumu often wore to sleep, drinking coffee out of a mug that said,  _ the better twin _ , a housewarming gift from Osamu. The underside of the mug said,  _ just kidding, though.  _ It was Hinata who continued to love him, even at times Atsumu withdrew and refused to be loved. It was Hinata who gently coaxed him open, petal by petal, and loved him again when Atsumu allowed.

It was Atsumu who subjected himself to showing his true self to Hinata, trusting that this time, perhaps all the mangled, locked-up parts of his heart would not be a laughing stock. It was Atsumu who looked at the curve of Hinata’s back as he slept and thought,  _ I could live in the ridges of your spine forever _ , and spent the morning freaking out to Osamu about what it meant. 

(“It probably meant that you’re in love, dumbass,” Osamu said.)

That was them, making a conscious decision to stay together, despite everything. Because of everything. Cosmic chance might have allowed them to exist in the same space in the right moment, but it was them who created their own universe. 

In conclusion—

“Atsumu,” Hinata lifted one eye open, a Herculean task when they’d spent yesterday taking out Tachibana Red Falcons in five sets, then the whole night thoroughly wrecking each other to shreds. The morning sun made him look like a bronze statue. “I think the amount of time you spent just staring at me like a creep could be better spent kissing me, would you agree?”

And Atsumu agreed wholeheartedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue:
> 
> Despite the locker incident, Bokuto and Atsumu became good gym buddies. Atsumu never told Bokuto that he was the one who gave Akaashi the extra ticket, but Akaashi did, and since then Bokuto had dubbed Atsumu his bestest friend. On their wedding, Atsumu was given the title as the honorary best man (Konoha was the real best man). 
> 
> Akaashi threw the flower bouquet and it landed on Sakusa, of all people, who promptly went to dispose of it. Ushijima stopped him before he could, talking his ear off about the kinds of flowers in the bouquet and their language, and there, Atsumu noted horrifyingly, a blush creeping up Sakusa's ears. Thus begins his second try at painstakingly getting his teammate together with his boyfriend's second biggest rival.
> 
> thank you so much for making it this far! if you would be so kind as to retweet/like this on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tinysriasih/status/1277867922778583040?s=20) i would be so *heart eyes emoji* 
> 
> see you next time!
> 
> ps. click next to read the sequel, "wasting your honor" :D

**Author's Note:**

> -when i saw this [panel](https://twitter.com/tinysriasih/status/1266343727385071616) in the manga i was like atsumu you clown  
> -atsumu either listens to some obscure indie japanese band or drowns himself in mitski's and rina sawayama's self-hatred unironically (i listened a lot to akasaka sad and washing machine heart while writing, which i think captures for me what atsumu's insecurities are like)  
> -u can rip my bipolar bokuto hc from my cold dead hands  
> -the next chapter will probably come in a few days, as it's written and edited, but i wanna split this in two because i didn't want it to be too long uwu pls bear w me  
> -please leave comments to motivate me through this gruelling quarantine days
> 
> thank u so so much for reading <3 i'll see u next time!


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